


dick grayson: unprepared for parenthood

by tripletmoons



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, a good dad but an absolute disaster, i just had daddy!Dick on the brain, just to clarify: he is damian's actual father here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 18:29:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16522379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripletmoons/pseuds/tripletmoons
Summary: Jason follows the movement, eyes dropping from Dick’s face to Damian’s. He blanks out, anger sliding away and leaving his features slack. “Jesus fuckin’ wept! Is that a fucking baby? Did you steal someone’s baby?!”“Uh, no I did not steal someone’s baby. This is my baby. What kind of question is that anyway. What the hell has Bruce been saying about me, kid?”





	dick grayson: unprepared for parenthood

He’s only been back in the country for a week - has yet to even wear his Nightwing suit out - and already things are going to shit. Madame Calixta - the circus fortuneteller - used to tell him; _N_ _othing good happens in America._ _It_ _is cursed country, boy. Land of the Damned._ His parents backed her up. Dick was partially raised in Gotham, he’s never had trouble believing it.

This is only the latest in a long line of evidence: Talia al Ghul is in his New York apartment. His  _brand new_ apartment that he  _paid for in cash_ like a shifty drug dealer. Bruce hasn't even found him yet; how did Talia? 

He’s in his civvies, unarmed. But he didn’t spend a year studying under some of the greatest combat masters in the world to die now, American curse or no. He drops his takeout bag and brings up his fists. If the thing in her arms is an explosive, he'll kick the Chow Mein at her as a distraction, nab it, and go for the window. He doesn't want this place blowing up; the apartment building is packed, plus: he just moved here and, unlike Bruce, he's not made of money. 

Talia doesn’t move. She looks at him like he’s a worm - lower than a worm: straight up dirt - and moves her arms so that he can see what she's holding. He tenses, prepares to spike his Chinese food, but she's not holding an explosive. It's a baby with dark skin and a little scowl. Talia al Ghul brought a grumpy baby into his apartment.

“What the fuck?”

Talia’s jaw moves. He half expects her to drop the kid, unhinge her mouth, and swallow him whole. 

She doesn’t. Instead she says, “He’s your son.”

Dick’s not going to fall for it. He keeps his fists up. 

She doesn’t like that.

The jaw thing happens again. “You think I lie!” She snarls. “If I wanted you dead I would not come to this rat-hole to do it myself. You are not so important as that.” Funnily enough, that he believes. Talia has never thought much of him. “He’s yours and I expect you to-...” She continues, but Dick isn’t listening anymore. The implications of the situation are setting in, knocking the battle-readiness from his muscles. 

The baby is staring at him, far too still and silent for a child. He has blue eyes; his tufty hair is dark as crows feathers. Even with the kid's features obscured by generic baby blobbiness, there is a resemblance. There is  _definitely_ a resemblance.

Dick doesn’t understand. The closest ever gets - got - to Talia al Ghul is when he punched her ninja while she punched Batman. He’s certainly never done anything with her that would - that would result in a _baby._

“How can you- how can you say he’s mine?” He stammers, cutting right through her monologue. She kind of looks like she wants to stab him for the interruption, or maybe that’s just her face. “There is - there is _no way-..._ This is the most convoluted League plot that-. _”_

“There is no plot. He’s yours.” Talia interrupts, suddenly cool like all the anger drained out to leave ice behind. She's staring right past him, distancing herself from this entire conversation, and holding the kid like he’s a sack of flour. Dick spent a lot of his youth in the circus around babies; that is not how you hold them. “I’ve left DNA evidence and his files on your,” her lips purse, “ _coffee table._ Feel free to run your own tests. I do not expect you to take my word on this, but you will take him.”

He glances over at the stack of pallet boards that make a _perfectly serviceable coffee table, thanks_ and sure enough: there’s a briefcase. He shouldn't have missed that but, sue him, there's a world-class Assassin in his apartment. It's fine that he missed a briefcase full of genetic information that will, apparently, link him parentally to this kid. Man, he'd rather it hold a bomb. It'd be worse, then, that he missed it but he knows what to do with a briefcase-bomb; he doesn't know what to do with  _this._

He looks back at the baby. His eyes. His hair. Ambiguous skin tone; maybe his, maybe Talia’s.

It just doesn’t compute. The baby has got to be _at least_ a one year old. Dick spent the last year on a training trip; he isn’t even seventeen yet. He grips the kitchen counter so he won’t fall over as his head whites out.  _Don’t think about the math._ A pit opens up in his stomach. He clenches his eyes shut.  _Don’t think about it. He’s probably not even your kid. Don’t think about it._

When Dick’s sure he isn’t going to vomit or fall over, he looks back at Talia. Distantly, he catalogues that he just gave her an opportunity to kill him that she didn’t take. She seems to be holding the boy even further away from her body than before, but otherwise hasn’t moved. Still, the baby hasn’t made a sound. Too quiet, too still. He’s just dangling there and he hasn’t made a sound. There’s something off about that. Dick’s stomach seizes again.

“What- what is his name?” He hears himself rasp.

Apparently, that’s some sort of signal. Talia lowers the kid to the floor, lays him on his back. “Damian Grayson.”

Dick stares down; Damian stares up. They definitely have have same eyes. He is peripherally aware of Talia leaving through the window. Apparently, she is done talking to him and done with the kid. 

Damian _Grayson_ , not Damian al Ghul. That's an important distinction.

Eventually - Dick doesn’t know how long it takes - the baby shifts, blankets rasping against wood. The kid makes his first sound, a discontented little noise, and Dick abruptly remembers his flooring has splinters.

The baby is in his arms before he can think about it, clutched close to his chest. Damian smells like milk and baby powder, which throws him. Shouldn't a League baby smell more like blood and steel, more like the incense they burn all over the place? He’s still gazing at Dick. _Blue, blue eyes._ Damian Grayson, not Damian al Ghul.

Dick wobbles over to his couch and slumps down, staring blankly at the briefcase in front of him. He knows he needs to open it. Talia said it held paperwork, but it might actually be a briefcase-bomb or contain like an amputated arm or something. He just, he needs to open the fucking briefcase. But he can't move. He needs to get started on working things out, but he doesn’t move.

If the thing does blowup, at least the baby will be protected by his corpse.

Damian makes another discontented noise, just as quiet as the first. Mechanically, Dick rocks the kid, bouncing him. A little fist clenches at his shirt front, twisting with tiny little fingers. Dick looks down. Damian’s eyes are just so _big,_ so  _blue_ ; his lower lip is trembling. It’s an expression that punches through the blankness and hits Dick in the gut. He swallows down acid and forces a smile.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay little guy.” Dick murmurs quietly, jerkily running a hand over Damian’s hair. It’s really soft. His next pet is smoother. “You’re just fine, little man. We’ll get this figured out.”

The kid doesn’t cry, but his expression doesn’t lighten either. Maybe he just doesn’t find English comforting? The League is a melting pot of cultures, but it’s pretty far from being the League of White People. English must be unfamiliar, strange. Dick can relate; even after all these years he still speaks to himself in Turkman and Romani, his Mother’s and Father’s native languages. His first languages.

“ _Do not look so sad_.” He tries in Arabic. “ _You are okay little one. Do not cry._ ”

Still no reaction. That’s probably good; he’s only just conversational in Arabic. Bruce used to-. _No_. He’s not going to think about Bruce. 

“A tough one, huh. Well I went from the Circus to the Batcave; I speak a lot of languages. What about this, then. _Can you understand me now, kiddo. Don’t cry, blue eyes.”_ Damian’s brow eases a little. His lip stills. Dick doesn’t think he’s imagining it. “ _Farsi, huh. I am very good at this one. My grandmother is Iranian, though she has lived in_ _Ashgabat for the last thirty years. I even remember some lullabies.”_

Dick lays on his back, more for himself than Damian; he still feels faint. Just thinking about lullabies raises his desire to pass out past dangerous levels. He props Damian on his chest in a comfortable co-sleep position, thanking the higher powers that he had so many Aunties in the circus. Dick was a pro-babysitter by the time he was eight.

Huh. He'll just think about it like that: Y _ou're_   _just_ _babysitting._ Forget the briefcase and the blue eyes. _You're just babysitting._ Talia might have left cameras in his apartment. No: focus.  _You're just babysitting._

He repeats his new mantra over and over, forcibly unlocking his muscles until he relaxes into the couch. On his chest, Damian settles back into stillness, lips in a moue of distaste. Fuck, it's kind of adorable. The kid he _is just babysitting_  sure is cute. Hah...

Dick casts around until he recalls an old Iranian song, and - feeling kind of stupid, it's been longer than a while since he's done this - begins to sing. “ _Sleep, sleep, walnut's flower. Your father went to the camp. Sleep, sleep, pistachio’s flower_ … ”

Damian gives him a _wtf-you-crazy-man_ look, which really doesn't help Dick's ego or reassure him about Talia's parenting. It takes the kid a while to catch onto the game, but eventually, after several repetitions, the baby’s eyes drift shut. Dick doesn't trust it though. Babies are tricksters, the lot of them. His Aunties kids used to fake sleep like it was an Olympic sport. 

He sings song after song and when he stops, it's because he's fallen asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very self-indulgent writing project for me. Basically, I wanted an excuse to explore Dick's background as a non-white citizen of the world and how he'd handle being a young father. The time-line of this fic will not match up with comic cannon; don't even try to make sense of it. I have the thing written out and am still confused.


End file.
